[Book review] WWW: Wonder by Robert J. Sawyer

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Robert J. Sawyer’s books are always fast reads for me.  I’ve been a fan of his work ever since I was a teenager and had the good fortune to pick up The Quintaglio Ascension.  His science fiction carries a lot of the human element that I think resonates so well with sci-fi that touches on societal concerns.  This is especially true in WWW: Wonder, the final novel in the Webmind trilogy.

The entity known as Webmind has survived one dedicated attempt to shut him down, but the incident teaches him a lot about how humanity might try to wipe him from existence.  It also shows him how people will react to his presence, as his existence is no longer a secret.  His human friend, Caitlin, is enduring the life a reluctant celebrity because of her association with the enigmatic Webmind.

Although all the Webmind wants is peace and harmony (for both altruistic and self-serving reasons), there are those who simply cannot believe that he means no harm.  One of these is Colonel Peyton Hume, an A.I. expert with the American government.  His Pandora protocol calls for any emergent A.I. to be destroyed before it can become too powerful, and he’s bending all his efforts to ending Webmind’s existence.

And Webmind himself is learning more and more about his own functioning and consciousness.  Could he be capable of evil, as so many think he will?  What are his morals, his values, and his limitations?  Only time will tell, and time is rapidly running out before Webmind might be shut down forever.

As I mentioned above, I appreciate when science fiction writers take the time to really dig into the societal implications of technology.  I think that we’re past the point in time where writers can explore technology in isolation—nowadays we’re so married to our cell phones and iPads and MP3 players that imagining an existence without technology is almost impossible.  Today, technology is as much about how it interacts with our daily lives as it is about its capacity or power.  And I think we’ve been moving this direction for a good little while.

It’s this idea that mutes the “Big Brother” implications of an omnipresent web-based A.I. such as Webmind.  In our daily lives, we rarely think about how the technology we use can be turned against us.  Google supposedly logs every search you’ve ever done, companies can log the keystrokes on your computer, your identity can be stolen at any of a dozen or more points in the course of a normal day.  In a sense, we do live in something of a Big Brother society.  But at the same time, technology seems to be driving us apart: people text constantly, they chat over the internet, they form online friendships that can eclipse their real-life ones.  For being so connected, we’re an awfully lonely bunch of people. 

But this novel flips that around, and plays off of the very natural human desire to know that somebody’s listening to us, that somebody is taking us seriously.  Webmind will chat with anyone on his website, and since he commands the computing power of the entire internet, there’s no limit to how many can talk to him at a time.  The idea of a benevolent entity that will always be there at any time is alluring.  And it’s this concept that softens the “Big Brother” aspect that might otherwise mar this story.

Of course, the author can (and does) turn this around to show the horror of such interconnectedness.  In the previous novel, Webmind watches a bunch of random people goad a girl into suicide without trying to intervene; in this novel, part of Webmind is detached from the main entity and, bereft of morals and emotions, goads someone to suicide out of what seems to be detached curiosity.  Unfortunately, this type of behavior is all too common in the real world.

However, I feel compelled to point out that I think Sawyer gets caught in his own slippery slope argument in the novel’s climax.  Other characters throughout the story note that it’s reasonable to fear that Webmind will become the only authority on what’s “for the best” and what isn’t.  For example, if Webmind can eliminate spam e-mail (which he does), what’s to stop him from deciding that other things—like those viral videos of cute animals—are also something that needs to be eliminated?  In other words, there’s nothing to stop Webmind from imposing his own arbitrary morality on humanity. 

And that’s pretty much what he does.  Webmind literally takes over China (with the help of a bunch of hackers) and deposes its entire government, so that the Chinese people can be free of the Communist regime.  The Chinese government simply rolls over and accepts it, with one character even saying that since Communism was likely doomed anyway, there’s no sense in fighting it.  It doesn’t seem to matter that there’s no infrastructure in place to support a suddenly democratic government, nor does it seem to matter that the upheaval caused by a sudden transition will be hard for the Chinese people as a whole to deal with (even though it’s something that they would supposedly want).  Webmind decides that democracy is the way to go, and thus it is so.  To me, it just seemed to pat, too easily accomplished, too much of the tidy ending to what would likely be a horribly complicated scenario.  While I can certainly get on board with Sawyer’s wish for a peaceful world, I think realism got left behind just a bit.

But aside from a climactic sequence that feels too neatly wrapped up, I found this novel to be immensely enjoyable.  Sawyer finds a balance between “too much extraneous info” and “just enough info to whet readers’ appetites”.  There are several tangential plotlines that are also wrapped up, and the author is skilled enough to bring them all together without it feeling forced.

WWW: Wonder completes a trilogy that may contain moments that incite fear, but it predominantly paints a picture of a future that is much brighter than where we are now.  It paints humanity at its most tolerant and compassionate, and the fruit of our labor (Webmind) as the inheritor of that compassion and tolerance.  In the end, as Webmind’s last words flash to humanity’s descendants, readers will feel deeply satisfied with Sawyer’s creation.

This book was provided by the publisher.